Overview

The Lighthouse Wire is a new magazine on campus run entirely by student writers from the Queen’s community. Our mandate is to foster creativity in the community by publishing new and original work by Queen’s students, members of the Kingston community and students from around the country. Our target market is the entire Queen’s community, including not just students but professors. Our main priority is to share and promote our love for writing with the larger community. We are unique among other Queen’s publications in two ways, as we offer dual accessibility and diversity for both contributors and readers by accepting and publishing a variety of work in all mediums, including artwork, photography and all forms of writing.

The Lighthouse Wire editorial board consists of experienced individuals with extensive links to the Queen’s literary community. The core editorial group begins with Omar El Akkad who is the editor-in-chief of the magazine. Last year, he was assistant news editor at the Queen’s Journal and an editorial board member of Ultraviolet, another creative writing magazine on campus. Next year, he will be news editor of Diatribe Magazine. With extensive experience in layout, Omar will play a key role in educating board members and contributors from the Queen’s community about the layout and the publishing process. He is experienced in the use of such programs as Quark Express and Adobe Photoshop, as well as web page design. As editor-in-chief, he will oversee the activities and content of the magazine. Mike Freeman, the layout editor, is another member of the core editorial group. He was Reader editor at the Journal last year and has extensive experience in layout and design. He will instruct contributors and the editorial board in operating various software programs. Another member of the core group is managing editor Thulasi Srikanthan, who was on the editorial board of the Queen’s Feminist Review last year. Clint Robinson, a third year computer science honours student, is the magazine’s web manager. He has extensive experience in web page design and scripting languages. The magazine’s business manager is Chris Sweeney, a third year student whose previous business experience includes running and managing the financial affairs of a successful landscaping business in Toronto. This core editorial group will work with the other editorial board members in designing the magazine and determining its contents. Other members of the editorial group also have extensive experience in the writing field. Tina Vashistha, a member of the editorial board, will be co-editor of Culture Shock next year and was an editorial board member of the Undergraduate Review last year. The strength of our connections to the Queen’s writing community is clear, as one of the earliest submissions we received came from Carolyn Smart, the director of the creative writing program at Queen’s and the author of At The End of The Day, an award-winning memoir.

Queen’s students – in the form of contributors and board members – are integral to the success of the magazine. The editorial team will be trained to function effectively in a publishing environment. Board members will gain experience using Quark Express, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Pagemaker, which are popular software programs used by newspapers and magazines across the country. As these Queen’s students use the different programs, they will also learn about page layouts and get an opportunity to improve their editing skills. They will also gain the additional benefit of learning to work in a team environment and improving their time-management skills. The Lighthouse Wire also offers contributors valuable experience in the field of publishing. By being present and inputting their ideas during the layout process, contributors will have the opportunity to work closely with the layout editor and photographers as well as learn about magazine layout and the different software programs used. The Lighthouse Wire, alone among campus publications, also offers to work one-on-one with contributors and provide feedback that might help improve their writing. By holding smokers and magazine launch parties throughout the year, the magazine hopes to attract more contributors and board members who will benefit from the unique learning opportunities that The Lighthouse Wire has to offer.